THOMASVILLE-  The Netherlands couple, Mr. and Mrs. Theo van der Elst have a very special connection to Thomasville, and while attending a training conference in America last week, they finally had the opportunity to visit the city and see the historic monument they’ve tried to locate in a photo for years. 

In The Netherlands, it is customary to adopt a grave of a young soldier who paid the ultimate price in World War II, so that the dutch could live in freedom. 

According to Theo, the idea of adopting the graves of American liberators originated in February of 1945. The “Burger Comitй Margraten” (Citizens’ Committee of Margraten) was then established with the goal being to generate support for the American Cemetery with the help of a large-scale adoption campaign. 

A person adopting a grave was expected to regularly visit the grave adopted, to lay flowers, and – if that person so desired – to maintain contacts with the surviving relatives in the US.

“The response to the campaign was overwhelming,” Theo said. “At the first Memorial Day celebration in 1945, all the graves were bedecked with flowers. On the second Memorial Day, a year later, all the graves present, which totaled 18,764 at the time, had been adopted. Captain Shomon – the founder of the American Cemetery – praised the members of the committee for all the work carried out.”

The response was so overwhelming, that the waiting list dates for years. 

After waiting for a couple of years, Theo was able to adopt two American heroes whose names are carved in the marble walls with the liberators who are missing in action at the Court of Honor at the American Cemetery. 

In 2014, Theo was able to adopt two additional fallen heroes at the Henri-Chapelle Cemetery and at the Neuville-en-Condroz Cemetery, both in Belgium. 

Since the adoption of these graves, Theo has made it his duty to find out any information he can about the fallen heroes, especially during The Netherlands’ “give them a face” project. 

The project was for every individual who had adopted a grave, and encouraged them to find ancestors and gather photos, so each grave would no longer be just a name, but someone’s child, father, husband. 

Theo was able to locate all but one of the photos, which led him back here to Thomasville. 

In the Henri-Chapelle Cemetery, Sgt. Arthur M. Warren of Georgia was buried. 

After years of searching and writing letters to the Governor of Georgia, attempting to locate Arthur, it was later revealed Arthur went by his middle named “Millard,” making him difficult to locate. 

“This guy was the hardest guy to find, but once we found out where he was from, we immediately got in touch with one of the relatives,” Mrs. Van der Elst said. 

Shorty before Warren was deployed to Europe, he married Bessie Gertrude Butler. 

According to Butler’s daughter, the two were deeply in love and had one baby girl together, who was stillborn. 

After Warren’s passing on February 25, 1945, Butler tried to repatriate Warren’s remains to the states, but his mother, Mary Lizzie Warren, declared he would be buried where he passed. 

Butler went on to marry Gordon Ray Stewart and have another daughter, Marcy Froemke, who she often shared stories with about her first love. 

Butler passed in 2009, but Theo was able to contact Froemke, who said her mother would have been ecstatic. 

“I was thrilled to receive the request for a photo of Millard Warren, my mother’s first husband and the love of her life,” Froemke said. “That someone has been kind enough to tend his grave all these years fills my heart and would have soothed my dear mom, who passed away in 2009 at the age of 86.”

Froemke sent Theo a picture of Warren, along with a photo of her mother and Warren, before his deployment. 

“I’m sending along a few pictures to give you a sense of the story behind Millard and my mom to make him more human for you as you hopefully continue and pass along this kind duty in future years,” Froemke told Theo. “How very, very thoughtful you are. Thank you for remembering our soldiers in this honorable and most compassionate way.”

Since the initial email providing the photograph, Froemke and Theo have kept in contact, with her often providing updates from Warren’s side of the family. 

However, Theo never thought he would be able to see where Warren was from. 

That all changed on Friday afternoon, when he and and his were traveling to Jekyll Island and saw the exit for Thomasville. 

The two decided it was fate and stopped in, locating historical landmarks that were seen in Warren’s photographs they had been sent. 

Theo would love additional pictures of Warren from that time period. If anyone believes they have a photo, please bring it to the Thomasville Times-Enterprise, where it can be scanned and sent to the Theo for his ongoing project.